Cows seem to react more positively to women, and that’s helping drive a rush of females into the field

America’s Dairyland is undergoing a bit of a revolution, and it has nothing to do with the words on Wisconsin’s license plate or even the size of farms.It’s about the cows — specifically who’s minding the animals in the barn.Increasingly, the folks caring for the cows, monitoring their health and managing the herd are women, according to agriculture educators in west-central Wisconsin. It’s a stereotype-busting trend that’s as dramatic as it is undeniable.The animal science management program at Chippewa Valley Technical College has seen female applicants climb from a minority four years ago to about three-quarters of the total for 2018-19, program director Adam Zwiefelhofer said.The male-female ratio also has changed noticeably over the last few years at UW-River Falls, where women this year account for 91 percent of the 650 students in animal science, the largest program in the university’s College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Science, said Dale Gallenberg, dean of the college

The State Ag and Rural Leaders group was formed as a 501 c(3) non-profit in 2006 at the 5th Annual Legislative Ag Chairs Summit in Tempe, Arizona. The first Legislative Ag Chairs Summit was in Dallas in 2002.